Carrying bags, particularly of the soft-sided, lightweight type, have found increasing use in recent years. The popularity of these bags is partially due to the fact that they may be provided with strategically located, separate pockets and other features that allow a user to gain quick access to stored articles. Because of their lightweight, such bags have come to replace heavier, hard-sided containers which, in the past, have been used for a variety of specialized applications, such as tool boxes, fishing lure boxes, sports bags and the like.
Because of the tendency to store more and diverse articles in these lightweight, specialized bags, they have, in some cases, become rather heavy, large and bulky. Larger, heavier articles tend to move around and sometimes place stress concentrations on weaker portions of the bag. This is particularly true where the soft elements and hard elements of the bag are not firmly fixed together. These disadvantages limit the use of these bags for certain applications. It would therefore be desirable to provide a commodious bag for storing a large number of specialized articles, but which affords the user the option of detaching certain portions of the bag, or accessories mounted thereon, so that these items may be carried or worn by the user without the need for carrying the entire bag. It would also be advantageous to provide a bag of this type which structurally ties the soft and hard elements together into a unified assembly. The present invention is directed toward satisfying these needs.